Bigfoot Finds Fame in Hocking Hills

He’s everywhere: in yards, on T-shirts, mugs, stickers and even tail lights. He’s big, hairy and sometimes frightening — and he may not even exist. Though elusive, he, she or it is Bigfoot — and has become somewhat of an unofficial symbol of the Hocking Hills.

According to data from Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO), there have been at least six recorded Bigfoot reports in Hocking County, the earliest dating back to 1979.

There are three classes of Bigfoot reports, according to the BFRO: A, B and C. All six of Hocking County’s reports are Class A and B. Class A encounters are “clear sightings in circumstances where misinterpretation or misidentification of other animals can be ruled out with greater confidence.”

Class B encounters are “incidents where a possible sasquatch was observed at a great distance or in poor lighting conditions and incidents in any other circumstance that did not afford a clear view of the subject.” Class C encounters are second- or third-hand reports or stories with “untraceable” origins, “because of the high potential for inaccuracy.”

However, encounters with the legendary creature do not seem to be what’s fueling all of the Hocking Hills’ Bigfoot imagery.

For Hocking County native Matt Pippin, deer were not the only animal on his mind during his first hunting trip.

“It’s funny because we were very aware of Bigfoot, as kids,” Pippin told The Logan Daily News Thursday. “The first time (my dad took me hunting), I went out; I remember going out on my own and just being so nervous, excited, but like, ‘Am I going to see a deer or am I going to see Bigfoot?’”

Pippin attributed his mindset to established Bigfoot stories he heard growing up, he said.

“It’s been rumored for – I mean – I’ve lived here all my life. It’s been rumored that there have been Bigfoot sightings here in the Hocking Hills,” Pippin said. “It’s almost like he’s old folklore for here, too.”

Pippin, who now co-owns hockinghills.com, a local tourism business, thinks of Bigfoot as Hocking Hills’ mascot, he said. “He’s recognizable. He’s big. He stands out when you’re out in the middle of the woods.”

Bigfoot’s established local reputation was reflected in 2014, when, according to a previous Logan Daily News report, the Hocking Hills Tourism Association (HHTA) commissioned a series of short videos by a local performing arts group to create “mockumentaries” promoting tourism.

The videos feature “Hocking Harry,” Logan’s own Bigfoot. The videos were uploaded to YouTube: “Hiking with Hocking Harry,” “Hocking Harry Takes to the Sky,” “Hocking Harry Conquers the Hocking River,” and “Hocking Harry joins the fun at the Washboard Music Festival,” among others.

HHTA Executive Director Karen Raymore said in October that the videos were made to build the HHTA’s digital footprint and to champion a local organization.

“We thought it might be something kind of fun (to) build out content for YouTube and (at the same time) there was a community theater group, called the Logan Theatre Group, and we wanted to support the community theater group and create content, and Hocking Harry just seemed like a fun way to do it,” Raymore said.

Raymore said that the videos received a lot of local involvement, including one interaction with Martin Irvine, who was the mayor of Logan at the time. However, Raymore doesn’t credit Hocking Harry for Bigfoot’s rise in the county.

“I don’t think Hocking Harry is the reason we’ve seen the increase in Bigfoot interest — not at all,” she said, stressing that the videos were to support the theater group. “So no, I don’t think that has had any influence at all.”

Instead, Raymore, who’s been HHTA executive director for 14 years, thinks that Bigfoot’s local rising fame perhaps reflects a larger, nationwide interest in the creature. There are countless Bigfoot reality television shows, including “Finding Bigfoot,” which aired on Animal Planet for seven years; and “Expedition Bigfoot,” which began in 2019 on the Travel Channel.

“I think different things kind of go through their popularity — and I think right now, it’s Bigfoot’s time,” Raymore said, adding that “probably any of our Ohio state parks (that are) heavily forested, like Hocking Hills, are going to be a natural attraction for Bigfoot enthusiasts.”

Raymore isn’t sure exactly why Bigfoot is seeing explosive fame in the Hocking Hills, but she isn’t surprised.

“There’s obviously, not just in the Hocking Hills, all over Ohio — there are reported sightings of Bigfoot. So we’re no different here, with all the forest land, (it’s) not really surprising,” Raymore said. “The folks that are Bigfoot enthusiasts are quite passionate about it. So I’m not surprised it’s become a thing or an attraction or a legend in Hocking Hills.”

Additionally, tourism has increased in the Hocking Hills since the pandemic began. The Logan Daily News previously reported that 2020 was a record-breaking year for the county’s tourism industry.

Visitor expenditures, calculated by lodging taxes and other factors, were $74.1 million in 2019’s first two quarters; in 2020, that dropped to $65.4 million, Raymore told the paper in August 2021. However, 2021’s first two quarters expenditures were $144.6 million. According to Google Trends, from 2004 to the present, searches for Hocking Hills (topic) were the highest ever in August 2020.

Pippin thinks that the area’s tourism industry and the possible cryptid’s popularity parallel each other in their rising trajectories.

“The more people that we have coming to our area, the more exposure we get, and Bigfoot gets, because you go to Walmart, you see (that) there’s a Bigfoot right in the center of Walmart,” Pippin said. “He seems to pop up all around the Hocking Hills.”

Raymore said she thinks Bigfoot’s fame will persist for at least a couple of more years, as long as Bigfoot continues to appear on TV. To her, there’s perhaps a bit of a romance to a “mythical” creature that thrives tucked away from civilization. During the pandemic, Bigfoot has been labeled the “world champion of social distancing.”

Bigfoot stands tall outside Logan’s Pizza Crossing, 58 N. Mulberry St. The cryptid has resided outside the restaurant for about a year now, Pizza Crossing owner Eric Cullison told The Logan Daily News Wednesday.

“It’s been amazing,” Cullison said. “We’ve had all kinds of people taking pictures with it.”

Pippin’s hockinghills.com approached the business about placing the Bigfoot outside, which also has a QR code attached. The Bigfoot cut-outs are made in-house, Pippin said. Businesses can approach hockinghills.com about placing one at their location.

Bigfoot can be spotted via hockinghills.com at three other locations, Pippin said: Brewery 33 Hocking Hills LLC, 12684 College Prospect Drive; Adventure Pro Outdoors, 1299 E Canal St., Nelsonville; and hockinghills.com’s office, 38 W. Main St. The point of the Bigfoots and their respective QR codes (and treasure hunts that follow) is to get people out and about into the community, Pippin explained.

“Around the Hocking Hills... the Hocking Hills chairs, the Bigfoots - (those) things are just kind of fun things for tourists to do to stop and take their picture with,” Pippin said. “Just so when folks are there at their establishment, they can take a picture and say ‘Hey, we were here.’”

The photo-ops and treasure hunts also sometimes come with rewards, Pippin said. “So when you go out and you (take pictures in) all five chairs, and you come back to our office, you get free shirts or hats, things like that. And that’s a way of getting people to venture around to the different establishments in the area.”

Other Bigfoot appearances in Hocking Hills food and drink include in-person sightings at the Hocking Hills Oasis Coffee Shop & More, 26850 U.S. 33, in Rockbridge, as well as on its signature orange and black T-shirts.

Additionally, Mam’s Rusted Skillet, 15842 OH-56, in Laurelville features a “Squatch” burger, a 1/3 pound patty with cheddar cheese, bacon crumbles, smoked pork, coleslaw and Yummers barbecue sauce. Inside, Bigfoot imagery adorns the walls.

Both Raymore and Pippin agree that Bigfoot’s allure stems from his elusiveness in the natural world.

“I think it’s fascinating to a lot of people to think there’s this mystery creature living off the grid, so to speak,” she said. “I’m sure that people have come (to the Hocking Hills) for the Bigfoot folklore.”

Raymore said she’s “not arrogant enough” to say Sasquatch doesn’t exist: “Either Bigfoot gets around big-time, or he’s got a huge family.”

Another notable recent addition to Bigfoot’s role in the Hocking Hills is the annual Hocking Hills Bigfoot Conference, which founder and Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist Bea Mills first organized in 2016.

The conference benefits Camp Oty’Okwa in South Bloomingville, which is owned and operated by Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Ohio. In the summer, the camp provides a free provides free summer camp experience to children whose families cannot afford to send them to traditional camps, according to a previous Logan Daily News report. While at camp, children — from central Ohio, Athens, Hocking, Pickaway and Vinton counties — get to explore the area’s natural resources and undergo mentoring; portions of the camp are also dedicated to children with trauma. In a typical year, the program serves more than 50,000 meals to its campers.

The Bigfoot conference has been successful since its inception and sees 200-300 attendees each year, Mills said. The fifth annual conference, held in October 2021, raised $2,404.70

But Mills’ relationship with Bigfoot began years before she began her charitable, cryptid cause. Her interest was piqued in 2013 after she attended a large Bigfoot conference which included speakers and scientific presentations on Bigfoot.

“Listening to that, they made sense,” Mills said, admitting her initial hesitation. “I guess they gave enough, like, information to support these outlandish theories that something like this could exist.”

A lover of nature, she thought of it as an excuse to get back out into the woods again, Mills said. Shortly after, camped out at Salt Fork State Park in Guernsey County — famous for its Bigfoot sightings and encounters — where she was to meet fellow Bigfooters. However, she had an electronic failure at her camp that spooked her enough to drive two hours back home.

Later, she found out that a police officer and his son had a similar experience nearby the site where she camped. She returned to the park to do a Bigfoot site investigation; however, this time, she wasn’t alone.

“I think it was May 2013. We went down to the lake there. And (my colleague) had thermal vision. And he was showing me different things to look at through these very expensive pieces of equipment, and we saw two deer,” Mills said. “And we’re passing it back and forth, and he shows me. He (handed) it to me and I was like, ‘Okay, great. I see the two deer. But what’s the third thing?’”

She handed the camera back to her colleague, who replied and said there was no third being.

“‘And he goes, ‘Oh s—t. It just stood up. It just took two steps.’” Her colleague then handed the thermal camera back to her, Mills said, where she saw the “tall thing” walk up the bank, past the deer and disappear into the tree line.

“It made no sense,” Mills said of her encounter. “It was all in the course of, like, 10 minutes. You go from two deer, to something else — to it standing up, and you could see the separation in the legs. It was just like, ‘That didn’t just happen.’”

Now, Mills is an established name within the Bigfoot community. Since her first visual encounter, she’s been Bigfooting countless times and is currently in the midst of a four-year study. She’s cast more than 20 potential Bigfoot tracks and claims to have one of the world’s largest collections of Bigfoot-related audio recordings in the world. In 2019, the Bigfoot Times newsletter named Mills ”Bigfooter of the Year,” making her the first woman and only the second Ohioan to win the major accolade, she said.

Ohio consistently ranks top five in the nation for Bigfoot sightings, Mills said. In 2014, The Philadelphia Inquirer listed Ohio number five in the country for Bigfoot encounters. Four years later, The Vinton-Jackson Courier reported that, according to BFRO data, Ohio again ranked fifth with most reports of alleged Sasquatch sightings or interactions in the country. Like Pippin, Mills said that Bigfoot is no stranger to Hocking County.

BFRO’s six Hocking County reports vary in location and types of encounter; in 1979, a family reportedly witnessed a Bigfoot on the edge of Wayne National Forest in Haydenville. The next year, hunters near Ash Cave reportedly saw footprints and a creature as well. In 1998, a woman reported seeing a “6 1/2 to 7 feet tall carmel (sic) blonde creature” in Marion Township.

As for more recent reports, in 2011 a woman on Goat Run Honey Fork Road reported whistling back and forth with an unknown entity, and also seeing “a tall hairy creature” stare at her. In 2017, two different reports within six weeks recorded hikers’ encounters with sets of large footprints in Rockbridge State Nature Preserve.

For those seeking out the big, hairy ape-man himself, Mills advises Bigfoot hunters to “learn as much as you can about whatever area it is that you want to go to take and tons of photos.” She also recommends Bigfooters to learn about their ecological environments and to stay safe. But above all, she stressed prospective Bigfooters to “have fun. This is a hobby.”

Mills noted that towns across the country have made spectacles out of their legendary creatures and lore — for example, elsewhere in Ohio, the Loveland frogman and the Minerva Monster; nearby, the Mothman in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.

“But no one in Ohio has claimed Sasquatch,” she said. “Why not Hocking County?”

View a gallery of Bigfoot images from around the region at https://tinyurl.com/2p8dtt8v.

I was out walking in the hills one day when I spotted a Bigfoot.

I soon came upon what can only be described as a Bigfoot altar.

At the center of the altar was a photo of Joy Behar.

That explains some things, don’t it?

We have six or seven trail cams around my house and my wife’s Mom’s house, she is our only neighbor for miles and both of us have put up security cameras around the houses. When most of the activity was taking place we had no dogs. We got two dogs and the activity went down. Both of the dogs passed and it picked up again, so we got two german shepherds and its calmed down a little but these two males dogs will not bark at hardly anything and we kennel them in the house at night.

The last time the house was stuck, about four months ago, my nineteen year old son was home alone. We were on a mini vacation and he got home from his girlfriends around 11:30pm and kenneled and fed the dogs and locked the house up for the night and was in the den playing a video game and something hit the house on one corner and it was loud and forceful enough for the two inside cats to come running to the den near where the impact came. It was a corner that does not have a camera, a blind spot.

He hears it and jumps up and goes and gets a .12 gauge shotgun and a handgun and is looking out the window and has never cared a flip about the security cameras and he’s texting us and his siblings to look and see what’s out there and his sister checked her phone and the playback on motion activated clips, nothing.

A friend of the family works for the area National Park and was doing some trail clearing near a picnic area one morning with another employee. It was very early with no one around yet and they heard a noise of something ripping through leaves and a little smaller than a baseball size rock lands by their feet and rolls by. They both stop and my friend says did you see that? Yes the other guy said. My friend who’s a big hunter says what animal throws rocks in these woods? The other guy also a hunter says none that I know of and there is no one around. They both look at one another and the other guy finally says, you are not one of those who believes in bigfoot are you? My friend says you tell me what chucks rocks like that if it isn’t a person? They went back to work and finished up the trail quickly and left.

Did any of the cameras that were ripped down record images of what it was?

Just curious, how close is your nearest neighbor?

Is there any possibility that someone in your area doesn't want you there and is trying to scare you away?

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